


Secret Santa

by FireSoul



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Family Feels, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 02:46:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13044897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireSoul/pseuds/FireSoul
Summary: Mick has a secret, Amaya finds out and lends him a hand.





	Secret Santa

It’s Christmas Eve, and they’re stopped in the present anyway to drop Jax off, so Sara’s decided to park the Waverider until tomorrow night in order to allow everyone a chance to get off and spend Christmas with their own families. She’s also offered to take Amaya and Zari back to their own times for the holidays, but they’ve both declined the offer. Zari gave the reason that, although she was happy to take part in the goodbye Jax/Christmas party on the Waverider, she doesn’t really celebrate any of the end of December holidays, and even if she did there isn’t really anyone left for her to celebrate with back home. Amaya said that she wouldn’t want to go home for only a day, which is true, but she didn’t have it in her to mention that she feels like once she’s home again that’ll be it; she’ll never let herself get back on the Waverider again.

She has a destiny, after all, and so the next time she gets off in Zambesi it will have to be the last; and she’s not ready for that day to be here just yet.

Still, wandering around the empty ship does get boring when there’s something other than the time stream outside the window.

Sara has gone to visit her mother, saying that she’ll probably go to see her father in the morning. Ray’s taken the jump ship to New York, apparently he STILL hasn’t bothered to tell his family he’s alive and has no plans of ever getting around to it, but he wants to see the big tree in Rockefeller Center. He’s also dragged Zari along with him, as well as Nathaniel, and even Leo. He asked her to go along on the trip with them, and truly she isn’t exactly sure why she turned him down, because being stranded alone on the Waverider is boring.

Alone.

It only hits her in that moment that she’s alone on the ship, with only Gideon for company, yet she has no idea where Rory would’ve gone.

“Gideon?” She asks; her brow furrowing as she goes through her earlier conversation with Ray in her head, making sure Mick didn’t go with him.

She knows he didn’t.

“Yes Ms. Jiwe?” Gideon’s reply nearly startles her, what with the way it echoes off the corridor walls more than usual.

“Do you have any idea where Mick went?” She’s just curious, because she knows Mick doesn’t have any family left in 2017 but he doesn’t seem like the type to join in on whatever Barry is doing, yet she doubts even he would pull a heist on Christmas Eve.

“He didn’t say, however he did take his cell phone and I have tracked him to an address in Keystone City, would you like the address?”

 

* * *

 

When she finds him he is indeed at the address that Gideon tracked him to, but he’s sitting on the roof. She eyes him curiously from the street below, and she thinks he sees her but she can’t be sure. So, going around the back of the house, she finds an overturned crate with fresh boot prints in the snow on its surface and climbs up. She follows Mick’s trail on the roof, until she’s standing beside him, and he still doesn’t say anything.

“What’s over there?” She finally asks after standing a few minutes in silence.

“Nothing,” Mick mumbles but she isn’t buying it.

“You’re standing on some person’s roof, on Christmas Eve, looking across the street at nothing?” She questions but his expression doesn’t change, and that expression is almost sad looking. “Mick?” She pleads, “Mick come on, what’s-”

“What do you see over there?” He cuts her off quietly, stoic as ever, and confused she directs her attention to the house across the street.

The bottom floor is lite up, a few people milling around the front room in nice clothes. There are also some children who pass by every now and again, most of them wearing pajamas. There’s a tree in the back of the room, illuminated by colorful lights and surrounded by presents. It looks pleasant, and warm in more ways than one, but the reason Mick is so interested in it is still lost on Amaya.

“A party?” She guesses but he doesn’t answer, not at first, it takes a few minutes before he finally nods for her to take another look.

“See the one on the end, with the little one in her lap?”

She looks more closely, noticing that the children are all squeezing together on one couch, probably for a picture. The one Mick has indicated appears to be one of the oldest, a girl who looks like she’s just reached the start of her teenage years and is holding on to one of the younger children. She has light skin and dark hair that is falling out of a low ponytail and hanging in a mess around her face. Amaya can’t tell many other details about her from here, nor can she understand why Mick’s pointed her out. But, he must know that, because the next thing that she knows he’s slipping something into her hands.

She looks down at the object she now holds, a small package wrapped in Christmas tree paper, and she turns it around until she finds the nametag stuck to it.

“To: Caroline, From: Santa.” She reads aloud, her brow furrowing even more, “I don’t understand.”

Mick shrugs, like he didn’t entirely expect her to understand, and settles his gloved hands into his pockets.

“I met her mom at a bar one night,” He says and suddenly Amaya gets it, her eyes widening with realization, but she doesn’t interrupt him. “Went back to Iron Heights for a couple months not long after, she came to visit me. Said she didn’t want anything from me, that if I wanted to come around every once in awhile I could, she just thought I should know.” He nods towards the window, through which they can now see the children all scrambling to get away from the couch and back to whatever they were doing before their parents corralled them. “In a couple hours she’ll go to bed, and I’ll go over there.” He nods again, this time towards the roof of the house, “And drop that thing down the chimney.” He concludes, his eyes having now fallen onto the present.

Handing it back to him Amaya doesn’t say anything, doesn’t know what to say. She wants to ask how many years he’s done this, but she already knows. She wants to ask if he’s ever actually met Caroline, or if he’s only watched her on Christmas Eve through this window, but she knows the answer to that too. So she sighs and tried to think of a question without an answer that will be immediately depressing.

“What did you get her?” She decides on, thinking it a safe question, but she reevaluates when Mick tenses up.

She’s about to apologize for crossing a line, about to leave him to his business in peace, when he answers her.

“A stuffed dog.” She doesn’t mean to raise her eyebrow at him, she truly doesn’t, but it happens anyway. “What?”

“You got your teenage daughter-”

“Thirteen,” he interrupts, like despite the fact that he doesn’t even know his daughter he still isn’t ready to admit that she’s already a teenager.

That’s oddly sweet, in Amaya’s opinion at least.

“Still,” she goes on, “Don’t you think she’s a little old for something like that?”

“Maybe,” he admits with a shrug, “But I don’t know what she likes, kind of have to stick with the generic stuff.”

She nods at that, “Well we can find something generic that’s a little…. More mature, if you want.”

“On Christmas Eve?” he asked doubtfully, and Amaya smirks.

“We have a time machine with a jump ship,” she reminds him and he considers the idea for a moment.

 

* * *

 

They take the jump ship back to yesterday, destination set as Central City just to be sure they don’t screw anything up. They go walking all throughout the down town area of the city looking for a gift, which is turning out to be more difficult than Amaya had anticipated. They can’t buy clothes because they have no idea what Caroline’s style is, or her size for that matter (though Amaya could probably make a fairly accurate guess after seeing her through the window). The same problem presented itself with shoes, and Mick put his foot down when Amaya wandered into the make-up section of a store. They also rule out the toy store fairly quickly, which Mick was surprisingly happy about because apparently there had been about three or four years in a row when he got her a Barbie every year, and he still hates walking into the obnoxiously pink aisle.

“Can I just give her the dog?” He nearly whines as the sun starts to set, snow starts to fall, and the two of them are still walking down the sidewalk empty handed. “She likes dogs, a couple years ago I saw her sitting on that couch petting one.”

“I though you didn’t know anything about her?” Amaya questions, almost challenging him, but he just keeps looking ahead.

“I don’t,” he insists, his voice a touch more gruff than usual. “Don’t even know her birthday. Just noticed a couple things over the years of spending Christmas Eve looking through that window.”

“Like what?” She asks, her curiosity peaked, and he seems unopposed to telling her.

“She likes dogs for starters,” he says before thinking a little more. “Saw her do some old woman’s hair once, or try to anyway. She used to walk into that room wearing some different, not to mention bizarre, costume each time; so she probably liked dress up when she was little.” He smiles then, to himself, almost like he’s forgotten Amaya is with him. Not that she has any intentions of reminding him. “When she was little she ran around like nuts. There was one year I think her mom must’ve spent that entire party trying to keep her from running into something, kid never seemed to stop moving.”

Amaya smiles to herself as he laughs; it’s so rare that Mick lets down his walls and allows himself to care about something in the way that he clearly does in regards to hi daughter, and even rarer that he allows someone else to see it.

“One more store,” she suggests, “If we don’t find anything you can give her the dog.”

She leads him into a jewelry store that’s caught her eye. She isn’t sure if she actually expects to find anything here, what with it being the day before Christmas Eve and all. Even as they walk through the tiny shop and a few things that aren’t terrible catch her eye she starts to admit to herself that they’ve struck out again, until she notices Mick looking at a shelf in towards the back.

“Find something?” She asks, hurrying to join him as he picks up a small box.

“Don’t know,” he rumbles in that low voice of his that let’s her know he thinks he’s found something, but he isn’t entirely sure.

The box he’s holding is made of dark blue velvet, and inside is a single silver chain supporting a heart shaped pendant. The heart is small and simple, attached to either side of the chain by the two arched sides of the top. There is a row of diamonds, false obviously, on the right side of the heart and the bottom side of the left is curved inwards.

“Think she’d like it?” He asks and Amaya looks up at his sincere gaze.

“Yes,” she answers, “I think she would love it.”

 

* * *

 

Upon returning to the present Mick makes one quick stop by his room to leave the dog behind and wrap the necklace, something he isn’t half bad at. He promises that he’ll be back soon and Amaya knows that’s his way of insisting he do this alone, which is more than fine by her. She ends up in the galley for a midnight snack and then head to her own room to get ready for bed, but to her surprise there is something settled on her pillow.

It’s small, maybe the size of her hand, and it’s wrapped in the same Christmas tree wrapping paper Mick had used for Caroline’s present. There’s also a sticky note on the top.

_Picked these up at the jewelry place, thanks for the help, and don’t tell anyone. –Merry Christmas, Mick._

Smiling to herself Amaya carefully tore the paper from the gift, her smile widening when she finishes.

Underneath the paper is a small blue box, much like the one for Caroline’s necklace, and inside is a pair of dangling gold earrings.

She puts them on and waits in the galley for him to return, and when he does she looks up at him with a soft smile.

“Your secret’s safe with me.”


End file.
